Happiness is... according to some Nobel Prize Laureates

Dr Abe V Rotor  

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Albert Camus, philosopher
Nobel Prize for Literature 1957

His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama
Nobel Peace Prize 1989

What is happiness to great people? Do they perceive the kind of happiness most people feel? Or do they have a world of their own too, when it comes to enjoying life?

Or, if their being unique and not understood in many ways, is the barrier - what then is happiness to them? Is there still a place of happiness in their genius?

Let's take it from some great figures of the world.

A. Happiness is... according to Albert Schweitzer

• Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success . if you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

• I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

Albert Schweitzer was a Franco-German theologian, organist, philosopher and physician. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of Reverence for Life. His passionate quest was to discover a universal ethical philosophy, anchored in a universal reality, and make it directly available to all of humanity. He founded the famous Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambarene' in Gabon, then French Equatorial Africa. 


B. Happiness is... according to Albert Camus

• You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

• But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

• All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.

Albert Camus was a French Algerian author, philosopher, journalist and footballer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times". He was a key philosopher of the 20th-century and his most famous work is the novel L'Étranger (The Stranger), and for his writings against capital punishment in the essay Réflexions sur la Guillotinehis views contributed to the rise of the more current philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay The Rebel that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom..

C. According to the Dalai Lama

• The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy.

• If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

• When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only make others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. Tibetans normally refer to His Holiness as Yeshin Norbu, the Wish-fulfilling Gem, or simply, Kundun, meaning The Presence. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his unwavering leadership in leading the Tibetans as one people in their own country amidst threats of China and the influence of modernism.

D. According to Mother Teresa

To Mother Teresa, happiness serving the poor. To quote:

"I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared-for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."

Excerpt from the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu), born in Skopje, Yugoslavia (what is now Macedonia), moved residence in Calcutta, India; 1979 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; leader of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresea started the House for the Dying, the Missionaries of Charity to help lepers and victims in many disaster areas of the world. She was awarded the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize.

Happiness is...therefore, to great men and women, a motivating force to achievement and not its own result; of making others and not oneself feel happy and successful, of being treated fairly, of being caed for; of reaching out for a cause with great determination, and whether one succeeds or not, finds fulfillment at the end. Happiness is... what makes this world a better place to live in - indeed a mark of greatness of anyone who can contribute to it in his or her own way.~